For months I've heard vague whispers about a secret plan floating around Dallas City Hall that involves shrinking Bachman Lake, which seemed about right, seeing as most of the city already treats it like an afterthought anyway — the Not-White Rock Lake at the the hind end of Northwest Highway. For months, city officials told me not to worry my big ol' bald head about it. Yeah, there are a few possibilities being floated about, they said. But nobody's looking to sink Bachman, they said.

Then I got a peek at those plans and possibilities this week — three in all, every one of which drains more than a few gallons out of the 205-acre lake. One of those renderings even does away with the 100-year-old dam and basically turns the lake into a trench with a few big puddles along the way.

So the rumors were true. And as someone who's always lived near the lake, who drives over or past or around it many times a week, they've got me worried. Because where's my lake?

Just remember: These renderings are nothing more than far-off could-be's produced by consultants at CDM Smith to whom the city paid $407,000 to produce the colored splotches and dotted lines planted atop aerial views of Bachman Lake. Might as well be an expensive art project for now.

They're not all awful — well, except for Option C, which I guess stands for "creek" or maybe "crap." With the just-finished trail around the lake, attracting runners even on recent frigid mornings, it couldn't hurt to have a little more green space.

Each rendering also features another bridge over the lake, hinting at the north entrance to Dallas Love Field that the Aviation Department has long wanted to alleviate congestion at the Mockingbird Lane entrance. The University of Texas at Arlington has been tasked with studying that, as well as the creation of an "innovation hub," or some kind of mixed-use development, between Northwest Highway and Webb Chapel Extension.

This map was released last summer when the University of Texas at Arlington announced it was looking at how a north entrance for Dallas Love Field would impact the surrounding area, including Bachman Lake.

This could all come to zilch. As Aviation Director Mark Duebner put it this week, "there's always a fourth option — do nothing." Or, more likely, the plans will serve as a road map for Bachman's future, necessitated by Dallas Water Utilities' decade-old need to deal with an aging and inadequate dam and spillway whose repair could run to $30 million. That's at the top of the to-do list that includes managing stormwater runoff from Love Field, the uptick in bird strikes at the airport and an ever-growing mountain of silt in the middle of the lake that's threatening to choke it to death.

Sarah Standifer, director of Trinity Watershed Management, said by email that all the options are on the table. It's just a question of whether they'll get done.

"Generally," she said, "these options maintain the status quo, partial dam removal but retain the lake, partial dam removal with step pools or total dam removal with the lake transitioning to a riverine environment."

Far as I can tell, only a few folks at City Hall have even seen the renderings — among them Dallas Water Utilities Director Terry Lowery, who said Wednesday that they're early looks meant to "start discussions about how we can do what we can do to benefit everybody, which is always a challenge."

Willis Winters, who heads the parks department, told me this week he'd only had the proposals described to him. That's just weird, given the number of parks projects at the lake, among them the coming aquatics center and that skate park we just agreed to fund using borrowed bond dollars.

Alex Gonzalez leaves the docking area of the Dallas Rowing Club at Bachman Lake on Wednesday.

(Ron Baselice/Staff Photographer)

Rowers are framed by trees at Bachman Lake.

(Ron Baselice/Staff Photographer)

Estrella, dressed for the cold weather, keeps up with owner Oscar Mireles during a trip to Bachman Lake in January.

(Ron Baselice/Staff Photographer)

"I don't know how the study will end up," he said. "We may end up with a smaller lake. But we have to attain the right balance between the water-recreation component and the parkland and solve all these other incredibly complicated issues from three different departments. We'll be looking for balance."

At some point they'll officially be made public: Standifer said "potential neighborhood and stakeholder meetings" could be scheduled sometime between March 30 and April 30. But they certainly weren't shared a couple of months ago, when Trinity Watershed reps met with the Bachman Northwest Highway Community Association — only after City Council member Omar Narvaez demanded to know what was going on at the lake in his district.

"We didn't get much information, except it was related to something about needing to do something about the stormwater runoff at Love Field that couldn't be directed into Bachman," said Tim Dickey, Narvaez's appointee to the park board and the Bachman Lake lifer who helped chase off the topless joints that lap-danced along the lake's shores.

"My concern is the way things go, they get far along in the planning stage before there is community input at City Hall," he told me this week, after Winters told me Dickey wasn't pleased about the plans or process. "There's the fear the community will be presented with things that have been decided behind closed doors."